Leave, Compensation Issues Also Left for Later

The Senate bill also would allow DoD to grant up to six pay periods worth of advance pay for its employees who have “particular or superior qualifications or skills” for relocations within the United States or its territories, similar to advance pay already allowed for employees being relocated overseas. The House bill meanwhile contains provisions not in the Senate version to limit the use of administrative leave by any agency in disciplinary situations and to require that agencies review the records of any former federal employees seeking employment there. Further, those records would have to contain the results of disciplinary investigations, even if the employee left before any action was taken. And while the House bill would repeal a policy in effect since late 2014 at DoD reducing per diem payments for employees on temporary duty assignments longer than 30 days, the Senate bill would leave it up to heads of DoD components whether to pay the normal full rate or a reduced rate. The lowered rate was designed to encourage more use of less expensive extended-stay type lodgings but has been criticized as discouraging employees from taking such assignments, especially common in the Navy for work on ships. Both versions also contain numerous special recruiting and retention authorities, some of them new and others extensions of existing policies, for hard-to-fill positions.

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